Should the Hornets care about the perils of Paul?

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So it turns out that Chris Paul wants to be traded, and he wants to be traded to a team loaded with stars worthy to keep his company.

The contract he signed — paying him $13.5 million last season and to pay him as much as another $49 million in the next three seasons if he chooses — does not matter. He was not happy with his 45 games with the team last season. A few of his buddies had a grand time getting together in Miami. The Hornets are nowhere near good enough to make their best player happy.

Can’t blame him; He did, after all, give the new GM all day Thursday to build a team worthy of his point guard’s gifts.

Unless he turns himself into too much of a locker room nightmare, Paul has absolutely no leverage to force the Hornets to trade him. But just as LeBron James had his Game 5, Paul had Game 4 against the Nuggets and it was worse.

As much as James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh took team building into their own hands, Paul would be taking that to a whole other level by abandoning his team with three seasons (two plus a third at his option) left on his contract.

The Hornets have shown no interest in moving him. For more than a year, the Hornets smacked back every trade call — including many from the Rockets — that came their way. But that was with another GM (Jeff Bower) and the current, but likely outgoing owner (George Shinn) running things.

Bower was fired in part because he lost Paul, showing that the Hornets would much prefer to make Paul happy in New Orleans than somewhere else.

All first-time GMs are greeted with calls from their new peers hoping to welcome them to the club by fleecing them in a trade. Demps is extremely well prepared for the job, but certainly will receive those initiation calls.

For now, the wisest thing Demps can do is to do nothing other than work to earn Paul’s confidence.

Initially, he might believe that the last thing he should do would be to move his best player. Amid the reports that Paul is plotting his escape, it should be noted that he is not James, Bosh or Wade, even if he wants to have the sort of roster they now celebrate. They were free agents. He’s not close.

When Kobe Bryant had his summer temper tantrums with two seasons left on his contract, the Lakers knew better than to let him get away, despite the baseless trade rumors that helped fill a few slow days.

The Lakers had far greater reason than the Hornets to believe that with one decisive move they could be contenders again. But David West has been an All-Star. There are worse second-best players out there. Add the right wing and Paul should be able to take the Hornets back toward contender’s status. They just would not have a Miami-style full house.

Failing that, if Demps spends a few months evaluating his roster and how it works with its new coach, Monty Williams, and decides that the Hornets are years away, he might decide that he better see what he can get for his most attractive player.

For now, however, Paul is a reason to be the GM in New Orleans. He is the sort of player GMs spend their careers trying to get and once they do, hope to never let go. Paul might have an “aggressive exit strategy,” as Ken Berger’s source put it, to get out of New Orleans. The Hornets, however, have his signature on a contract.

He might get together with Demps and Williams and tell them he is adamant about wanting out. They would be well served for now at least to tell him he might as well make his peace with his situation and make the best of it. And when July 2012 rolls around, he can make sure not to announce his decision with a one-hour ESPN infomercial.

• • •

The Rockets’ chances to get Paul, should the Hornets decide they can make the best of his dissatisfaction by dealing him, do not look good.

They can put together an attractive package, with enough expiring contracts, young talent and picks to make a deal workable and attractive, with maybe enough money included to take a bad contract (Emeka Okafor, come on down) off the Hornets hands. But the best player the Rockets could offer, Aaron Brooks, plays the same position as Paul, the same position as similarly swift and slight young point guard Darren Collison.

Unless the Rockets were to become part of a larger deal, it would seem that the Hornets would be able to do better than getting a player that plays the same position as their similar young talent. Then again, when trading a star, it’s tough to get equal value. The Rockets would not have to make an offer that makes the Hornets a better team without Paul than they are with him; only better than they would be with other offers coming in.

• • •

If nothing else, it was good to have Chris Paul highlights running all day. When it comes to players worth watching, he might be for my tastes the top of the list.

Can’t say he is the top point guard, though. Deron Williams get the nod here. But the margin is pretty slim and Paul could reclaim the label, assuming he does not spend next season trying to get himself traded.

• • •

The Rockets have not had a press conference all day, but there was a theme to the week.

Daryl Morey started the press conference on Wednesday by talking about the style of Kyle Lowry and Luis Scola.

“These two guys really embody our culture,” Morey said. “Winners. Hyper-competitive. Guys other guys on the team look to for how to act. Really have been such a big part of our team the past two years.”

With Brad Miller bringing the same style, the extreme competitiveness that marked the first half of last season could be a strength again.

The Rockets, however, always were their best when they seemed driven to overachieve. They were without Yao Ming and started the season with a brutal part of their schedule. That’s when they were their toughest, most determined and best.

With Yao back, they have to get that back, too.

• • •

While on the subject of Yao Ming, he did an interview in China in which he said he does not know yet if he will be everything he was before he missed a year after his foot surgery.

Surely, no one thought Yao would smack his hands together and shout, “I’m back and better than ever, baby!”

Instead, Yao told the China Daily, “I have no idea if I can return the peak of my form.

“I have not been tested. I have not played competitive basketball since the injury even in the training. I cannot answer if I will return to my best.”

There is no specific reason to believe that he won’t eventually be the player he was before the latest injury. He always has needed a good bit of time to build his game back to its best and never missed as much time as he has.

He is a bit ahead of schedule, has lost the majority of his excess weight and still plans to be there at the start of training camp. But no, when given the chance, he did not predict he would whip Dwight Howard the next time he sees him.

That’s not Yao, and few players no matter how gifted, come back from major surgery and time lost and declare themselves 100 percent before they are able to prove it.

• • •

Speaking of which, Tracy McGrady has intimated in tweets that he will choose between the Bulls, Heat, Lakers and Clippers. Now which one does not fit with the others?

He did not say in his 140 characters if he has offers from those teams or had offers from any others. He worked out for the Clippers this week and will work out for the Bulls next week, having apparently failed to show enough last season — probably should not have declared that he was ’100 percent’ when playing like that — to get offers based on what he showed in his 30 games last season.

Still, it is quite a fall, going from one of the most gifted, coveted talents in the league to spending a day auditioning for the Clippers. It’s tough to imagine that Jack Nicholson is asked to read lines to get a walk-on cameo on ‘My Boys.’

McGrady ought to be able to show enough in a one-day tryout for all those skills to shine through. It’s amazing he has to.